We live on board a Bristol 45.5 sailboat and are cruising as the seasons allow and our interests suggest. We are June Wan and Bruce Clark. June is an IT person who 'retired' when the economy went sour and her company in Jersey City cut staff. Bruce is a retired high school teacher and sometime author of geography textbooks. This blog will chronicle their lifestyle and will also include general observations on life, politics, international development, and geography (broadly defined of course!).

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Cost overview for 6 months

Thought I better do this before we look at May in Tahiti where we have spent quite a bit of money. Our spending from Florida to Polynesia has been (significant expenditures in brackets) Everything in $US:

April$547(Internet for the entire area of French Polynesia - $217); note that it is hard to spend money at sea or in harbours where there is not much to buy.

Categories of spending (for 6 months)

Boat maintenance - $528

Boat capital improvements - $40

Dockage, moorings -$588

Government fees -$1773! (Panama, Ecuador and Galapagos are very pricey; Gambier Islands was less than $2 (for two stamps)

Sightseeing and souvenirs -$3548 (money well spent we think for mainland tour in Ecuador and Peru and tour of Galapagos)

Food -$982 (remember the boat started off in Florida well-provisioned)

Fuel - $589

Water, garbage disposal - $36

Shore travel - $103 (local buses and, in a few place,s taxis)

Entertainment Ashore - $528 (meals and drinks ashore – you could spend a fortune on this if you wanted to)

Internet -$252 (free to cheap in many places except French Polynesia)

Miscellaneous - $761 (mainly Panama Canal fees)

Total - $9708

The only thing I resent in all this are the government fees and associated costs for mandatory agents. In Panama and Ecuador, it is a bit of a lottery who will hit you for money and how much it will be. Probably Panama is the worst with charges for customs, immigration, port captain, agriculture dept, buoys and lights, mariners’ visas, fines for not having mariners’ visas (that were not offered in the first place). These countries’ hurt themselves by making it unattractive for cruisers to visit.